A Danish startup helps you hack the perfect meal using AI and hardcore science

Did you know that a banana contains 142 different aromas, and it goes really well with zucchini? Danish startup Planjammer has set out to discover the holy grail of recipes, by codifying tastes and finding new healthy ways of putting food together.

”90% of Danish households eat less than ten different dishes per year. Because it is cumbersome, inconvenient to change the way you cook. You know what works and you stick to that. We want to change that dynamic by making it easier try out new food combinations. To make people eat healthier food and with waste less of it,” says Michael Haase, CEO, and Founder of Plantjammer.

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Combining millions of aromas with millions of recipes

The Plantjammer method derives from the science of food pairing, i.e., identifying which foods and drinks go well together. That is a massive endeavor with each ingredient having a large number of different aromas on the one hand and then the complex human experience of food on the other, involving all five senses. Plantjammer is taking food pairing to another level by spicing it up with AI.

”We are using neural networks, the workhorse of AI, to crunch all the data and variables. We have mapped aroma profiles for hundreds of vegetables and added data from 2.5 million recipes. The result is a powerful database for new food pairings. You can start with a single ingredient, and Plantjammer will tell you what other kinds of vegetables go well with your starting point, and how to cook it,” explains Michael Haase who started the company in 2016.

Tech gets more people cooking

If you have six different ingredients available, the database can tell you about 1.7 billion tasty dishes. Plantjammer is not only a tool for the general public but also for professional chefs. ”There is an entire industry constantly producing new receipes. With our data we can build a new creative space for chefs where they can combine science with their intuition and experience.”

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Plantjammer is currently financed by private investors, but is preparing for a new funding series in Q1 2018.

The company is working with international experts such as Mark Bittman, American food journalist, and author of 20 books on nutrition and cooking. ”The idea of building a billion-person crowdsourced database of an infinite number of recipes, that's pretty cool. The notion that you can figure out food combinations that you had never considered through tech. What we need is to get more people cooking, and I think that Plantjammer is in a position to do that. I find that exciting.”

From McKinsey consultant to startup founder

Michael Haase's entire career has been about global resources, but, until Plantjammer, from a different perspective. He started his career as commodity strategist with Merrill Lynch before joining McKinsey as an advisor in energy resources for governments in Europe and Asia. He then squeezed in three years in business development for Danish biotech giant Novozymes before starting his own venture.

”I noticed that when dealing with food-related problems, governments and companies tend to change the supply of things, like new kinds of meat that is more environmentally friendly. We focus on the demand, on the people eating food and we want to give them more options, to master their food with what is already available,” says the 35-year old.